Geralt sat down with relief. Emhyr continued to stand, leaning against a carved wardrobe.

‘You saved my daughter’s life,’ he said. ‘Several times. I thank you for that. On behalf of myself and posterity.’

‘You disarm me.’

‘Cirilla will go to Nilfgaard.’ Emhyr was not bothered by the mockery. ‘She will become empress at a suitable moment. In precisely the same way that dozens of girls have become and do become queens. Meaning almost not knowing their spouses. Often not having a good opinion of them on the basis of their first encounter. Often disappointed by the first days and… first nights… of marriage. Cirilla won’t be the first.’

Geralt refrained from comment.

‘Cirilla,’ continued the emperor, ‘will be happy, like most of the queens I was talking about. It will come with time. Cirilla will transfer the love that I do not demand at all onto the son I will beget with her. An archduke, and later an emperor. An emperor who will beget a son. A son, who will be the ruler of the world and will save the world from destruction. Thus speaks the prophecy whose exact contents only I know.

‘Naturally,’ the White Flame continued, ‘Cirilla will never find out who I am. The secret will die. Along with those who know it.’

‘That’s clear,’ Geralt nodded. ‘It can’t be clearer.’

‘You cannot fail to detect the hand of destiny in all of this,’ Emhyr said after a long time, ‘All of this. Including your activities. From the very beginning.’

‘I see rather the hand of Vilgefortz. For it was he who directed you to Cintra, wasn’t it? When you were the Enchanted Urcheon? He made Pavetta—’

‘You’re stumbling in the dark,’ Emhyr interrupted brutally, tossing his salamander-decorated cloak over his shoulder. ‘You don’t know anything. And you don’t have to know. I didn’t ask you here to tell you my life story. Or to excuse myself before you. The only thing you have earned is the assurance that the girl will not be harmed. I have no debts towards you, Witcher. None—’

‘Yes you do!’ Geralt interrupted brutally. ‘You broke the contract. You went back on your word. They are debts, Duny. You broke a promise as a princeling, and you have a debt as an emperor. With imperial interest. Ten years worth!’

‘Is that all?’

‘That is all. For only that is owed to me, nothing more. But nothing less, either. I was to collect the child when it turned six. You didn’t wait for the promised date. You planned to steal it from me before it passed. The destiny you keep talking about sneered at you, however. You tried to fight that destiny for the following ten years. Now you have her, you have Ciri, your own daughter, whom you once basely deprived of parents, and with whom you now mean to vilely beget incestuous children. Without demanding love. Rightly, as a matter of fact. You do not deserve her love. Just between us, Duny, I don’t know how you will manage to look her in the eyes.’